Chapter Text
Shouta tossed the file down on the desk and leaned back, staring up at the bright fluorescent light on the ceiling, wondering if it were possible for him to die here and now and ascend via that light.
“You look exhausted,” Tsukauchi commented from the other side of the desk. Shouta gave him a noncommittal grunt in response.
“You should go home and get some sleep.”
Shouta shook his head, “I’m fine. Run the details by me again.”
Tsukauchi raised an unconvinced eyebrow, “Sure. Detail number one: there are no details. That’s the issue.”
Shouta huffed, “I remember that part, that’s why I’m so frustrated. Run the fine details by me again. Yamada claims that talking through your issues aloud helps more than… ah, never-mind. He was probably talking about emotional issues. I’m not doing that.”
Tsukauchi snorted, “You know there are therapists that specialize in counseling pro-heroes, right?”
Shouta waved an exhausted hand through the air. “Tried it once. Not my cup of tea. I prefer working, which is what I’m doing right now.”
“Right, well, maybe his idea is worth a try.” Tsukauchi picked up the first file, cleared his throat, and read from it. “Two weeks ago, we found a villain tied up on a street corner. No evidence as to who did it or why, however, he was missing all money and weapons on his person. Upon being questioned about what happened, he claimed to have gotten, and I quote, ‘lost on the road of life.’ When asked about it yesterday, he said he doesn’t remember what he meant by that.”
Tsukauchi picked up another folder. “Two days after that incident, a bank was robbed, but only of a small sum of money. The bank teller who gave the perp the money does not remember the perp at all, and claims that he’d been home sick that day. This was clearly not true. When we consulted the security footage, we found that it had been turned off for the duration of the crime. When we asked the security guards about that, they claimed they didn’t remember ever doing such a thing. One of them claims that he went to the bookstore to buy a romance novel during his shift, but hasn’t been able to find it since. Once again, no evidence was left behind as to who could’ve done it.”
Shouta chuffed under his breath.
“The third incident was a week ago. A pet shop was robbed of six bags of dog food and several salt licks in broad daylight. No evidence. The girl working the register claims that a deer walked into the shop around the time of the incident, and she’d been so surprised that she must’ve missed whoever stole the items. It wasn’t until her coworkers took inventory that night that they realized things had been stolen. Security footage does not show anyone stealing dog food, salt licks, or the presence of a deer at all.”
Shouta pinched the bridge of his nose. “A memory warping quirk?”
“Doesn’t explain the camera footage.”
“Reality warping?”
“Maybe. But I can’t imagine becoming a petty criminal with a quirk like that.”
“‘S not good for heroism,” Shouta pointed out. “But perfect for stealing.”
“I’ll write it down.”
“Next one,” Tsukauchi said after a minute and picked up the fourth file, “Game store. Their entire inventory of chess games was stolen. No evidence, no security camera footage, clerk claims that a nine-tailed fox came in and ransacked the building before reciting a bad haiku to him. He was amazed when he snapped out of it and discovered that the store hadn’t been destroyed.”
Shouta’s lip quirked up into a smile. “Might want to ask all these interviewees if they’ve been dipping into LSD recently.”
“Maybe,” Tsukauchi huffed. “I’d probably shit my pants if I saw that.”
“Me too,” Shouta agreed. “A nine-tailed fox? Spitting poetry at me? No thanks.”
“Hey, it could be worse,” Tsukauchi picked up the last file. “Could be the girl that claims she was in a boxing match against a man in a green jumpsuit with orange leg warmers, but when the man punched her, he punched her so hard that she got rocketed into the sun and burnt to death upon impact.”
“Jesus… that’s horrifying.”
“Which part?”
“Definitely the leg warmers.”
Tsukauchi tipped his head back and laughed while Shouta returned to staring at the light, occasionally blinking spots out of his vision. “Any other ideas?” he asked once Tsukauchi was done.
“Nope.”
“Damn.”
Tsukauchi got out of his chair and started sifting through his other files.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, since we’ve got nothing, and you’re here, you can help me on some of my other cases.”
Shouta rolled his eyes. “I’m not free labor, you know.”
“Of course not, you always get paid to assist the police,” Tsukauchi tossed a stack of files in front of Shouta.
“Yeah, for villain take-downs. Not—” Aizawa gestured to the files, “—filling out your paperwork for you.”
“You don’t want paperwork?” Tsukauchi asked innocently. “Fine, hand me those files back.”
Shouta happily handed them back, and Tsukauchi handed him a different folder in turn. “What’s this?”
“You said you didn’t want paperwork. Well, this one’s outside of our jurisdiction, but it’s still interesting as hell. Take a look, give me your two cents on it.”
Shouta gave him a suspicious glance before he opened the file, scanning the page. “You want my opinion on… a sinkhole?”
“That’s what the experts decided that’s what it was, but I’m not convinced.” Tsukauchi ran a hand through his hair. “A massive crater appearing in the middle of a forest that was geologically completely stable beforehand?”
“Well, this is Japan. Earthquakes happen.”
“No seismic activity was recorded in that area at the time.”
“… Alright…” Shouta flipped the page to a separate report that detailed a wildfire happening near the sinkhole. “And what do you think of the wildfire?”
“Experts can’t find anything that may have started the fire. Just like the sinkhole, it came out of nowhere.”
“Maybe they were triggered by a quirk.”
“Right. A quirk. In an area that’s roped off to the public.”
“Teenagers do stupid shit.”
“Clearly,” Tsukauchi sighed. “It’s been labeled a cold case. No one was injured and since it’s so far removed from everything, it’s not important. But it rubs me the wrong way.”
Shouta set the folder down. “It’s definitely weird, but I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Maybe just… tell me I’m not going crazy? That there’s definitely something off about that.”
Shouta looked around at all their folders full of crazy shit. “You’re not. The world is.”
Tsukauchi huffed, “Fair enough.”
Shouta sifted through the files once again, trying to find evidence that just wasn’t there. “Why’d you have to bring me in on this case?” He bemoaned.
“Because you asked for a job to work.”
“Yeah, well… I’m regretting that decision. I can’t investigate nothing.”
Tsukauchi hummed. “I know. Look… we’ve been at this for hours. Why don’t you go home, get some rest, and come back tomorrow? Maybe what we need is a fresh start.”
“I’d gladly do that if I knew you were going to do the same.”
Tsukauchi picked up his notepad. “I’m going to check the databases for known criminals with quirks like the ones we’ve suggested so far. Then I’ll go home.”
“Go home first,” Shouta told him. “We’ll start with that tomorrow.”
Tsukauchi gave him a wry smile, “Alright.”
Shouta walked through the hallway of his shady apartment building, eyes half-lidded, exhaustion quickly catching up to him after his long day of work.
The apartment building he lived in was cheap, run-down, and mostly empty. He didn’t have many neighbors, probably because he’d arrested most of them at some point or another. He’d moved into this shitty place purposefully—he was surrounded by criminals, and that meant he was in the perfect place to do his job. Shady drug deals usually took place at the “playground” across the street, there’d been a couple of murders in the building, and Shouta was pretty sure that the old lady living three floors above him was selling drugs, though he had no real proof. He didn’t really intend to follow up on that one—she was like, 90 years old. The problem would solve itself soon enough.
People moved in and out of the building all the time. Shouta’s favorites were the people that realized a pro-hero was living in the same building as them, panicked, and moved out again. Why? Because they were the easiest to find dirt on.
Shouta shuffled up to his door and pulled out his keys. Plural. He had four locks on his door. For a reason.
As he was unlocking the second lock, two figures passed behind him, each carrying boxes. New neighbors, Shouta figured.
“Shikamaru, get the door,” an exhausted voice said.
“What a drag,” the other voice replied, somehow more exhausted, and Shouta tuned into the higher-pitched voice quickly. He turned to glance at them and found that the smaller of the two had to be a child. No more than 6 or 7 years old. And the other… was an adult man. A mask covered his lower face, and his silver hair spiked upwards from his head, defying gravity.
Shouta returned to unlocking the third lock, listening carefully.
“Why are we here again? This place smells,” Shikamaru muttered, setting down his box in order to open the door.
“Because it’s out of the way. The less heroes the better,” the man replied, spitting out the word “hero” like it disgusted him. The door opened, and the man pushed at Shikamaru’s back, “Go on, get inside, brat.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever. I’m not helping you with the rest of the boxes.”
“Leave it to you to be lazy,” the man sighed, and disappeared inside his apartment.
Shouta started on the fourth lock. The man stepped back outside the apartment, and saw Shouta still standing there, unlocking his door. Shouta nodded at him. “You new to town?”
“Yeah.” He eyed the four locks on Shouta’s door. “Do I need to be acquiring more locks?”
Shouta shrugged. “Depends on how many enemies you make.”
“Hm. Maybe I should then.”
Shouta raised an eyebrow, but chose to ignore the implications of that statement. “I’m Aizawa, you?”
“Kakashi.”
“Nice to meet you, Kakashi. The kid yours?”
“Ah… well, I suppose he is now.”
He is now? What was that supposed to mean?
“I need to go get the rest of our stuff.” Kakashi said and then walked past Shouta with silent steps.
Shouta opened the door and stepped into his apartment, confused. He meandered over to his kitchen, eye twitching as he began to overthink the entire situation.
Kakashi was young. Younger than Shouta had initially thought. Shouta’s age—23—at best, but probably younger.
Shouta opened his fridge, frowning. A 20-something year old and a 6-year-old? Moving into this shitty place? At—Shouta glanced at the time—11 o’clock at night?
The entire situation rubbed him the wrong way. He couldn’t jump to conclusions, though. Maybe Kakashi was Shikamaru’s cousin or older brother and a villain attack had displaced the two of them. That was the easiest explanation. Kakashi probably didn’t have a lot of money and therefore had to move the two of them into this shithole so that he could keep buying them food.
Shouta grabbed a jelly packet from the shelf and shut the fridge, hearing the bottles inside jingle from the force.
Shouta stood in his kitchen for a long moment, throwing around hundreds of other possibilities to explain the situation regarding his new neighbors.
The sound of a door creaking open pulled him out of his train of thought.
“Shikamaru, remind me to fix the door. It’s too loud.”
Shouta couldn’t hear the response over the sound of the door shutting again, but he could hear some indiscernible murmurs through the drywall. He moved closer to the wall, curious.
Shouta had always hated how thin the walls were in the building. He hated being able to hear his neighbors going at it at three in the morning, he hated being able to overhear the sounds of someone shitting, and he especially hated the woman with the parrot who lived across the hall from him. He could hear everything that damn bird said, the most memorable being the time it had decided to sing Christmas music for three hours straight in the middle of the night.
But now? Well, the thin walls were useful. Shouta leaned in and held his breath.
“—Ushinai is our biggest problem right now,” Kakashi was saying.
“How about when you’re going to feed me? I’m hungry. We haven’t eaten in two days.”
“I told you to take a pill.”
“I did.”
“Then stop complaining. I’ll feed you when I get money.”
“What a drag.”
No more conversation followed after that. Shouta frowned and shuffled away from the wall, heading towards his bedroom; he had a long day ahead of him tomorrow, but… something told him he wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.
“Good morning,” Shouta greeted Kakashi as he stood outside his door, locking all the locks.
Kakashi merely grunted and nodded at Shouta as he began installing several locks that Shouta didn’t know when or where he’d gotten them from.
“I noticed that Shikamaru is really young,” Shouta brought up. “If you ever need someone to watch him while you’re out at work, I’m right here.”
Shouta hated children. But the entire situation with Kakashi and Shikamaru was bothering him, and an opportunity to speak to the kid one on one was the perfect way to get information.
“Don’t think for a second I’ll let you near him,” Kakashi responded in an absolutely bland voice. Not the sort of tone that fit the words he was speaking. His words were a threat but his tone sounded like he was bored. Uninterested. Like Shouta was barely a speck on his radar.
Shouta blinked in surprise. “Sorry?”
Kakashi grunted, “He’s none of your business. Stay away from him, and from me.”
Shouta felt his stomach sink in despair at the second blandly spoken threat. Kakashi didn’t look like much—what with his slim body hidden under baggy clothes and his tired expression betraying that he got even less sleep than Shouta did—but Shouta could tell there was something else about him. Something dangerous.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Shouta responded, and finished locking his last lock. He turned and walked away, heading towards the station to help Tsukauchi follow up on their case.